Posted By
John Henderson
On
July 22, 2012 @ 5:37 am
In
Cycling |
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VICHY, France – It was nice to settle in with a civilized sport like swimming after trying to survive only four days of the Tour de France. I have eaten like a pauper in this country.

From Tuesday through Friday I had one hot meal. I have lived off bread and cheese and a little sausage. I have transformed into what many athletes have called me: a rat.

In the Tour de France there’s just no time. Sure, at each stop the local town treats the media to local fare but last week it was all local cheese and sausage. Or local sausage and cheese. The wine’s tempting but chasing down cyclists who’ve just spent 5 ½ hours climbing mountains requires all your senses at full alert.

In my last stop, Brive-la-Gaillarde, I walked into the press box of the rugby stadium adjacent to the press center after driving four hours from Spain. A way overly enthusiastic town official immediately shoved some foie gras on a piece of bread into my hand.

You know what fois gras is? Do you know how it’s made? It’s fattened goose liver made by force feeding geese. And it tastes as bad as it sounds, not to mention you can’t help thinking … those poor birds.

That night on the way north to Vichy, I stopped off in one of France’s god-awful roadside cafeterias. France’s galaxy-wide gastro rep takes a major hit with these chambers of food horror. Earlier that day, a sprawling cafeteria outside Toulouse had only a convenience store, a bakery with cold pizza circa 2010 and a breakfast diner seemingly out of everything but cold crepes.

That night’s cafeteria I ordered a chicken breast that was … cold again.

But covering swimming has its perks. I went to the U.S. swim team’s media day Saturday from 9-noon, had a nice pizza at an outdoor café for lunch then went to an impossibly romantic brasserie that night.

Forget the fact that I had the last table and was the only one dining alone. I had tajine de lotte, anglerfish resting on spongy bread and covered in finely chopped vegetables and spices. Now I’m off to Paris.